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THE $16.2 billion Building the Education Revolution scheme, one of the signature policies of the Rudd and Gillard years, has been condemned as an international case study of legislative and bureaucratic failure.
A paper by three Australian academics published in the International Journal of Public Administration says the Labor-era stimulus program of building multi-purpose school halls, science labs and libraries highlights the pitfalls governments need to avoid when rolling out large-scale public expenditure programs.
It finds the BER did not “adequately capture” value for money and produced “fiscal lag’’ because its objectives to pump prime the economy with expansionary stimulus happened too late and was at odds with the Reserve Bank’s restrictive monetary policy.
More than five years after the height of the global financial crisis, The Australian can reveal there are still eight public and private school projects to be completed in NSW and one non-government project in Victoria.
“It is argued that the BER program represents a ‘case study’ of how governments should not pursue large-scale public expenditure programs,’’ the paper, “Building the Education Revolution: Another Case of Australian Government Failure?’’ states.
Lead author Chris Lewis told The Australian that a better designed program would have reduced waste and produced better value for money.
“The faults within the system were illustrated by the government rushing the program. As we conclude, there is no longer the expertise in the public service any more. It’s bureaucrats rather than people with technical expertise and that’s a big problem,’’ Mr Lewis, who now contributes to On Line Opinion, said.
Education Minister Christopher Pyne said “taxpayers have every right to be angry with the former Labor government over the way it let their money be wasted on over-priced school buildings, and their failure to quickly act to prevent waste from occurring’’.
In 2011, the third and final taskforce report into the BER highlighted concerns about value for money and found 1.1bn was wasted in delivering public school buildings to NSW and Victoria, when compared with Catholic counterparts. Victorian and NSW government schools had 72 per cent of complaints despite delivering 37 per cent of the program.
Craig Mayne, a BER whistleblower, said yesterday the findings of the research paper were “no great surprise’’ and “blind Freddy could have seen at the time that it was always going to be a monumental cock up’’.
